Contentious issue may be on agenda at 2019 Amazon synod amid shortage of pastors

Former priest David Grea poses during a photo session in Lyon, central-eastern France, on April 5, 2018.Grea lost his clerical state of a priest because he got married. (Photo by Jeff Pachoud/AFP)

As more clerics question the validity of traditional Church policies that exclude swathes of the population, from abortion to same-sex marriage, a Belgian bishop urged this week that married men no longer be barred from the priesthood.

"I am convinced that some young people, who have drawn from the baptismal vocation their call to wed, would gladly say ‘here I am' if the church were to call them to the priestly ministry," he was quoted as saying.

Critics contend such a policy shift could serve as a counterpoint to the practice of celibacy and the coincidental emergence recently of a tidal wave of sex abuse cases dating back decades that have embarrassed the Church.

A spokesman for the Belgian episcopal conference, Tommy Scholtes, told the religious website CathoBel that Kockerols, the Auxiliary Bishop of Brussels, had the support of all Belgian bishops.

However he qualified this by adding that this was "not the only solution" to the problem of dwindling numbers entering the vocation.

Pope Francis has also sent mixed signals on such contentious issues as he faces criticism from conservative Catholics that his thinking on certain matters may be too liberal for old hands to accept.

Pastors in the Orthodox and Protestant churches are allowed to marry, and the pontiff has indicated in the past that he may be open to considering this for the Catholic Church.

The theme of next year's Amazon synod is "Amazonia: new pathways for the Church and for an integral ecology."

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